I DON'T envy the shenanigans involved in being an A-list celebrity. By all accounts it's a taxing existence where any perceived glamour is far outweighed by the myriad soul-sapping gubbins they must endure.

There came a pointed reminder in recent days when Friends star Jennifer Aniston revealed that she follows an "intermittent fasting" regime called the 16:8 diet. Which is a similar idea to the better-known 5:2 but rather than days, the numbers relate to hours.

According to the plan, the optimal eating window is between 10am and 6pm. Which is surely a bit of a bummer when you arrive home from work at 6.05pm and just want to lie on the sofa with your hand in a family-sized bucket of KFC chicken watching repeats of Fleabag.

As a rule of thumb, a celebrity's standing on the Fame-O-Meter is inversely proportional to their Body Mass Index (BMI) – the higher the former climbs, the lower the latter must plummet.

Marilyn Monroe famously started her day with two raw egg yolks whipped into warm milk. Madonna has followed a strict macrobiotic diet – no wheat, eggs, meat or dairy – for years. Gwyneth Paltrow extols the benefits sprinkling "moon dust" herbal remedies over her morning smoothie.

There's a reason that celebrities often refer to their diet and exercise plans as a "regime". It is tough and tyrannical and utterly devoid of joy.

READ MORE: Susan Swarbrick: Telly trendsetters and mourning the death of an analogue era

Take Aniston who has a so-called "cheat" day once a week where she treats herself outside fasting hours. I know what you're thinking: a couple of Quavers, perhaps a microscopic sliver of doughnut?

Not even close. Aniston reaches for a celery juice. Talk about self-flagellation.

Mash up

ALL hail the mighty potato. After years being banished to the wilderness by many health bods, the starchy root vegetable stands on the cusp of vindication. Well, almost.

A study has found that when the body runs out of glycogen and needs fuel during exercise, a spoonful of mashed potato is as effective at providing energy as fancy carbohydrate gels.

The research (which I impart with the wry caveat that it is "supported by the Alliance for Potato Research and Education") found potato puree compared favourably with gels or water in topping up energy levels in long-distance cyclists.

In my erstwhile fitter days – a sepia-hued bygone era when I would regularly partake in mass participation running events and rack up Strava segments on my bicycle – I was well versed in the rigours of athletic nutrition.

I slurped protein shakes after workouts, glugged down rehydration drinks and shelled out a small fortune on energy gels. The latter were a necessary evil but a bit of a faff because, no matter how carefully the gloopy paste is squeezed from the packaging, it invariably results in a sticky mess.

Throw in the consumed-on-the-move aspect – such as running through a muddy park or hurtling along on a bike – and the potential for mishap becomes ever more precarious. More than once an unfortunate gel spill left me resembling a contestant being gunged on Pat Sharp's Fun House.

Although the technicalities of how to administer a dollop of tatties while mid-exercise remains woefully unclear. I would hazard you'd need a team of nutritionists – or perhaps a willing mammy – to leap out from the roadside and pop a spoonful into your gob.

Butler's life

PAUL Burrell, Stephen Fry and Lurch from the Addams Family may have you believing that being a butler is a jolly caper, but don't let that fool you. Life below stairs is not for the lily-livered.

I say this as two relevant job ads come to light. The first, from Buckingham Palace, seeks a trainee butler. The salary is £20,806, which isn't a hefty chunk of change for a 45-hour week but does come with live-in accommodation.

The second is for a wealthy Russian family and on paper sounds like a sweet deal with a £62,000 salary – three times that to work in the Royal Household – yet has rather specific criteria.

For a start, the successful applicant must speak two languages; know all the best restaurants in London and the south of France; oversee the smooth running of homes in four countries; and be a diplomat who is "able to solve any issue at school, at a shop, at a salon for the benefit of the family".

They must also watch the televised adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster – starring Fry and Hugh Laurie – "to see what is expected from the butler" and ideally be born under one of the family's favoured star signs, preferably a Sagittarius, Virgo, Aquarius, Capricorn or Leo.

READ MORE: Susan Swarbrick: Telly trendsetters and mourning the death of an analogue era

Being personal factotum to a super-rich, demanding, detail-obsessed, astrology-fixated brood who hanker after a 1920s butler to get them out of scrapes doesn't sound like difficult gig at all.